Coherent support for school leaders

Coherent support for school leaders By David Lee School leaders consultant

The recognition by the Department of Education (DoE) of the need to reinvest in developing, supporting and sustaining school leadership and the flow on to system leadership is highlighted in the commitments made in the 2020-2024 strategic direction document.

The statement is that:

The school autonomy reforms of recent years have, as well as benefiting schools, had a significant impact on the culture of the organisation and the relationship between schools and central, regional and statewide services. Principals have not only accepted greater responsibility for their school’s performance but are now also playing a leadership role in relation to the improvement of the whole system.

Further to this, evidence shows that the autonomy reforms have changed the relationship between the three levels and it is timely that the purpose of the regions and what they can offer both to the centre and schools is revisited. The 2013 reforms stripped out many of the resources at a regional level that had previously been utilised by schools and had an unintended consequence of increasingly isolating schools and breaking down the sense of coherence and identification with being part of a united public school system.

The SSTUWA supports the position that regional offices provide an important resource to schools and have been active in seeking to place additional resources at this level through the last EBA negotiations.

Regional offices and the support offered at the regional level are important structurally in vision setting, planning, building effective local support structures, developing people and processes at a level closer to schools to build the capacity of school leaders, staff and community to provide a quality education for our students.

High quality leadership is required to ensure that regional offices play their role in building school and system leadership and that means a re-think and an adjustment to the key regional executive director role that in the future is proactively geared towards leadership as opposed to their management focus that became evident over the last decade.

To further support school leaders the SSTUWA in the new Schools General Agreement 2019 expressly called for the establishment of a Collegiate Principal position and the reintroduction of a Professional Learning Institute providing a range of professional learning opportunities for all – school leaders and teachers.

The rationale for these initiatives reflect both the DoE current philosophy of placing educators and students at the centre of our work and the view of Michael Fullan who uses extensive research to state:

The key to system-wide success is to place educators and students at the centre. This means aligning the goals of reform and the intrinsic motivation of participants. So policies that foster strong intrinsic motivation across the whole system are required, as are strategies that develop increased capability. Both strong motivation and enhanced skills on a large scale are required.

The SSTUWA position accepts the research behind the four drivers for system improvement articulated by Fullan:

Capacity building for teachers and school leaders.

Group solutions for improvement.

Improving instruction.

Systemic strategies as opposed to fragmented strategies.

And these drivers for improvement need certain characteristics and can be judged with four simple questions – Does the driver:

Foster motivation of teachers and students?

Engage educators and students in continuous improvement?

Inspire team work?

Affect all teachers and students?

In that context then:

Structurally there is a need for how this might be achieved in terms of purpose, beliefs, planning, structure, processes and people and the SSTUWA has been proactive in calling for the reintroduction of regional support structures and changes to the way school improvement is managed.

The SSTUWA stated position ratified by State Council in 2016 was that a new system support structure and processes should:

Promote a school improvement culture.

Build and promote collaborative school leadership in and across schools.

Promote leadership succession planning.

Build a process for the identification of new school leaders across the state. Build a process for identifying and growing the next group of system leaders.

Promote confidence in teachers and school leaders in their approach to their professional duties and student learning.

Deliver clear links between school leaders, regional and central support.

That position has been amplified by the SSTUWA negotiating for:

1. The re-introduction of a Professional Learning Institute providing a range of professional learning opportunities for all – school leaders and teachers – and there is a seamless, coherent and cohesive connection with the work of the School Improvement/Leadership Branch.

a) That the Professional Learning Institute is funded to the extent that the professional learning requirement of the four pillars of the Leadership Strategy can be met.

2.

3.

4. b) That the Professional Learning Institute be funded to the extent that the professional learning requirements for teachers and whole school improvement approaches can be met in those areas identified as system endorsed improvement strategies.

Confirm the Hamilton attributes valued by DoE as quality leadership directions. Utilisation of the Principal Performance Improvement Tool (PPIT) developed by Masters with input from Western Australian principals and senior staff to provide a transparent practical systemic direction on which to base development.

The director of the School Improvement/Leadership Branch or the director of the Professional Learning Institute have line management responsibility over collegiate principals to work with the Professional Learning Institute and have a clearly articulated relationship with the School Curriculum and Standards Authority to promote a system curriculum, pedagogy and assessment approach in schools.

The director of the School Improvement/Leadership Branch or the director of the Professional Learning Institute have responsibility 5. with collegiate principals and the Professional Learning Institute to ensure system delivery of a centrally funded, mandatory induction program for all newly promoted school leaders (Level 3 – 6 in the current classification scheme and any future classification scheme).

The establishment of collegiate principals :

a)

b)

c) Collegiate principals, recognised as high performing school leaders, are selected through a transparent and rigorous selection process and be seconded for two years as leaders with the capacity to build quality leadership at all four levels of the Leadership Framework. These principals focus on leading a cultural change away from traditional line management models of performance management and accountability to a new age model of performance development, school accountability and improvement. One that is based on a philosophy of collective and collaborative practices that build capacity and improvement through supporting school leaders to reflect and invest in building a culture of school to improve with positive, open and authentic processes that engage staff rather than didactic forms of control. That approach is aligned to the current work being done by the school leaders principal advisors, “Building Cultures of Teaching Excellence”. Collegiate principals actively engage in the current leadership review and reshaping of the selection process of school principals both as a referee and informed participants in school workplace assessment of competencies.

The collegiate principal operation would, in the existing regional structure, require 10 across the Metropolitan region and a further six for one to be based in each of the country regions. The collegiate principals in the metro would be linked to each of the regional collegiate principals to provide direct access and support to their colleagues.

Collegiate principals establish effective relationships with school (Continued on page 8)

(Continued from page 7) leaders in their cluster of schools (based around existing networks) to initiate real and authentic reflection processes about the school leaders' performance and what can be done to support them in promoting a continuous improvement agenda in schools.

d) Collegiate principals provide proactive support for the implementation of the Public

School Leadership Strategy, both in the 2018-2021 timeline and going forward, to embed the processes of the strategy in the culture of the department over a longer timeframe.

Public School Leadership Strategy pillars

• Pillar one: Talent identification – A strategic process for selecting acting principals into highly effective schools for two years to replace a newly appointed collegiate principal, in contexts deemed appropriate, has obvious benefits in providing a two year preparation program for the acting principals for a substantive role. A collegiate principal is also well placed to work with school leaders in the cluster to identify and engage in a program to develop leaders and build a much more connect view of the capacity of these leaders.

Pillar two: Leadership development and support – The collegiate principal role in establishing mentoring approaches for newly appointed principals, collaborative models of coaching principals in need of support and building partnerships and developing system focused professional development. This professional engagement within the cluster, across the cluster and in partnership with the Professional Learning Institute and the SSTUWA is potentially a very important component of professional growth and building individual and collective belief in school leader sense of competency and wellbeing.

Pillar three: Performance improvement, management and feedback – The collegiate principal role as support, operating with system endorsement to engage principals in collective and collaborative practices that build capacity and improvement is culturally significant. The collegiate principal – in supporting and leading school leaders to reflect and invest in building a culture of improving schools with positive, open and authentic processes and take personal responsibility for self-reflection and discussion with colleagues to develop a Leadership Development Plan – actively supports system driven reform in this area. The plans are built upon the WA-developed ACER Leadership Framework (PPIT) to provide a consistent guide across regions and networks – a system view.

The collegiate principals returning to their schools strengthen the approach by providing a broad and informed basis for additional support to colleagues in their cluster for supporting and improving performance feedback and advice to others. Such principals would also be in a position to work with regional executive directors to marshal support for those schools deemed to be needing additional support through the existing School Review Process. It may also be worthy of consideration that previous experience as a collegiate principal be part of the future selection process for directors of School Review, with a similar maximum two years in that role before returning to the principal position.

Pillar four: System leadership – The collegiate principal by the very nature of the work across schools and through the interaction with the director of the School Improvement/Leadership Branch and the Professional Learning Institute build system thinking and a broader appreciation of system direction and system structure, policy, processes and personnel. Over a number of cycles of this approach the school leadership overall sense of connectedness to the system and capacity to inform, support and lead system improvement is enhanced.

This approach would be strengthened by seamlessly integrating with the existing Harvard Fellowship process, with all collegiate principals once appointed being able to access the program during their tenure.

KYR Know Your Rights

The team in Member Assist look at some changes in the 2019 Schools General Agreement that will affect members. We'll detail further changes in the next edition of Western Teacher.

Sick Leave Award clause 41(1)(h)

The sick leave clause has been changed by deleting the requirement to show the nature of the illness and/or disability of the employee.

The clause now reads:

Employees are required to complete the necessary application for accessing sick leave, which will include the period in which the employee was unfit for duty and, subject to subclause 41(3), evidence to satisfy a reasonable person. The Employer shall not unreasonably withhold this approval.

Carers Leave Award clause 31(1)(a) and (4)

The carers leave clause has been updated regarding the employee caring for a family member and the way time can be taken off.

31(1)(a) now reads:

Employees are entitled to access in any one year up to a maximum of 12.5 days paid leave to provide care or support to a member of the employee’s family or household who requires care or support because of an illness or injury of the member or an unexpected emergency affecting the member, provided the days used are accrued sick leave entitlements.

31(4) now reads:

Carers leave may be taken in full days or periods of less than a day.